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Or it's the "normal" and "expected" response, but for arbitrary value numbers different than you think they should be.

Certainly in the eyes of the less fortunate, petty theft may not seem so petty.
And grand theft might be something they never have to worry about, having nothing that counts as "grand".

Still, the law sets the value of various levels of theft. In Alaska, a stolen burger is Theft in the Fourth Degree and unlikely to receive any official police action, even if they did show up to keep the situation from getting out of hand. Your missing car engine case (contrived as it might be) is Theft in the Second Degree and most certainly would get attention.

Point is, the law makes distinctions, and so should adults.

Having a 911 button on a cell phone (bringing it back on topic) servers only to make people into children again, tattling to mom over trifles, instead of dealing with it as adults.

Or it's the "normal" and "expected" response, but for arbitrary value numbers different than you think they should be.

Certainly in the eyes of the less fortunate, petty theft may not seem so petty.
And grand theft might be something they never have to worry about, having nothing that counts as "grand".

Still, the law sets the value of various levels of theft. In Alaska, a stolen burger is Theft in the Fourth Degree and unlikely to receive any official police action, even if they did show up to keep the situation from getting out of hand. Your missing car engine case (contrived as it might be) is Theft in the Second Degree and most certainly would get attention.

Point is, the law makes distinctions, and so should adults.

Having a 911 button on a cell phone (bringing it back on topic) servers only to make people into children again, tattling to mom over trifles, instead of dealing with it as adults.

Bullshit.

If the museum failed to inform NASA that they considered it destroyed, then NASA may have a cause for monetary claim against the museum. Nothing more.

The rock's been "missing", and more to the point neither NASA, nor the federal or state government, even bothered to search for it, since 1973.

That would place it under Adverse Possession laws:

http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title09/Chapter45/Section052.htm
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title09/Chapter10/Section030.htm

It's long been abandoned. Legally, the State of Alaska can go fuck themselves.

Bullshit.

If the museum failed to inform NASA that they considered it destroyed, then NASA may have a cause for monetary claim against the museum. Nothing more.

The rock's been "missing", and more to the point neither NASA, nor the federal or state government, even bothered to search for it, since 1973.

That would place it under Adverse Possession laws:

http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title09/Chapter45/Section052.htm
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title09/Chapter10/Section030.htm

It's long been abandoned. Legally, the State of Alaska can go fuck themselves.

The "Tea Party" didn't cost the republicans anything -- Reid's seat was never going GOP, as he won it with election fraud. I live here.

O'Donnell didn't lose because of the "Tea Party", she lost because of idiot old-guard republicans who couldn't stomach the thought of a young conservative in office. They removed all funding when she won the primary, and then ridiculed and mocked her continually on the public stage -- Karl Rove is the reason she lost, not the "Tea Party".

Clinton should have resigned. He cost this country a great deal by wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money for his defense, and completely ignoring his job for years -- guess what? Palin didn't have that option. She was paying her own legal bills, out of her own pocket, and she had the integrity to stand down when it didn't make sense to stay.

If you're an Alaskan, which I doubt, and you don't know which ethics laws the liberals abused to file baseless complaint after baseless complaint against her, I'd recommend you learn a bit about your own state's laws. It's the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act, which everybody who pays even the tiniest bit of attention to politics (which you obviously don't, considering you quote huffington post and msnbc to me as authorities on the subject) knows.

No, you are telling me why she resigned.

She never told the State of Alaska why she resigned other than noise about the media hounding her, something that became the cry of Joe Miller when the media didn't fawn over him in October and November of the '10 cycle.

As for being successful, the Tea Party movement cost the Republicans the Senate and lost seats that should have gone GOP, most notably Reid's seat in Nevada.

As for her resigning because there was "no way for her to stay." Well that is complete garbage. Clinton didn't resign when the right attacked him on '94 or '97-98, he stayed in the office the people elected him to and paid him to work in.

What ethics laws did the "leftist liberals" abuse?
Feel free to point them out - http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/statutes.htm

Palin just showed she's a quitter, so if somehow she became President I'd expect her to quit as soon as the Daily Show said something mean about her.

You can find that information here:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title40.htm
specifically here:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title40/Chapter25.htm
and the definitions of the terms are here:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title40/Chapter21/Section150.htm

My reading of it? The emails pertaining to state business are public records that must be preserved.

You can find that information here:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title40.htm
specifically here:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title40/Chapter25.htm
and the definitions of the terms are here:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title40/Chapter21/Section150.htm

My reading of it? The emails pertaining to state business are public records that must be preserved.

You can find that information here:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title40.htm
specifically here:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title40/Chapter25.htm
and the definitions of the terms are here:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/Statutes/Title40/Chapter21/Section150.htm

My reading of it? The emails pertaining to state business are public records that must be preserved.

The Alaskan courts don't always agree that deliberative process trumps public access (Fuller v. City of Homer). I'm having trouble finding the actual statutes that cover record retention for Alaska. I sent a couple of emails, so I'll have to wait and see what I can find out. It seems that while a court may uphold executive privilege in certain cases, the governor doesn't get to make that call unilaterally. If there are truly no rules regarding document retention, then public access is essentially useless, as anything that could be requested could also be destroyed.

Bankruptcy cannot discharge debts due to "willful and malicious torts". I'd expect the RIAA to argue that file sharing is both willful and malicious.

Cross-post from Groklaw... I did a quick Google of "bad faith" in regards to bankruptcy filings, and there is apparently precident regarding exactly the same situation as SCO is in. Using bankruptcy just as a tool to thwart other litigation is apparently a BIG no-no. From a non-authoritative source: http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/usdc/bnkrptcy/briefs/bnk45.htm "One area ripe for a bad faith dismissal is when the debtor is using a bankruptcy filing as a litigation tactic to either forestall litigation or seek a forum perceived to be more friendly. In Marsch, the court upheld a 'bad faith' dismissal where the chapter 11 petition was filed solely to delay collection of a judgment and avoid posting an appeal bond where the debtor had the financial means to pay the judgment." Also, in addition to dismissing the bankruptcy case, the bankruptcy courts may well impose the "nuclear" sanction - barring SCO from asserting another bankruptcy claim in the future. This would leave them totally exposed to the full wieght of any other judgements, with no way out at all - not even Chapter 7 liquidation. In other words... "you're on your own, Darl..." Is anyone with any expertise in bankruptcy proceedings around to help the community figure out exactly how this works? Something tells me the bankruptcy filing is not going to fly for long, but may expose SCO's legal team to some serious malpractice liability. And... maybe after this little road bump is resolved we'll finally see Kimball bring some real sacnctions down on the SCO side too. This is just getting beyond ridiculous.

Indeed an interesting comparison can be drawn between ISPs giving up email and a search of, for example, a private mailbox at a Mailboxes, Etc. store.

Thompson v. Anderson and Mail Boxes Etc., Inc.

Basically, it held that, while the property could be seized, it could not be used as incriminating evidence in court. The guy still got convicted on other evidence, but it does certainly suggest that the precedent is in favor of searching email on an ISP being inadmissible, albeit not unreasonable search nor unreasonable seizure. It -might- still be admissible as "reasonable cause" for getting authorization for a search warrant, however.

Bottom line: if you're a criminal, you had better use IMAP....

If this person wins this case it opens the doors for alot more. Once it can be shown in court that Kazaa either misled or outright lied to its users, it can then be shown that Kazaa was AIDING AND ABETTING the the criminal violation of copyright laws. Once that takes place, then Kazaa itself can be held liable for CRIMINAL actions.

It would not surprise me in THE SLIGHTEST that the RIAA is behind this themselves. Its all about "precedence". Once you win a small case, its only makes it that much easier to use that small case as a foothold in larger, farther reaching and far more serious cases.

Based on my reading of that story, in California you can apparently petition a board (the "Victim Compensation and Government Claim's Board") for compensation in the event that you're the victim of something. This guy did that, and convinced the Board to award him $100 a day. As I've never heard of that before (and heard of several cases where people were exonerated via DNA and didn't receive a dime), I'm willing to bet that it's some State of California construct. The story doesn't say anything about the person actually suing the state in civil court or anything.

I suppose in theory however it would be possible for a state legislature to pass laws exempting that state's government from immunity to civil suits. I've never heard of it being done, but you'd have to ask a Constitutional law scholar whether a statute like that on the State level would be allowable (i.e. can a State government purposely open itself up to lawsuits which are prohibited via "sovereign immunity" doctrine?). I think the answer would be no, based on the way the USSC has historically interpreted the 11th Amendment (in particular, Hans v. Louisiana, 134 US 1 (1890)).

At any rate, I was speaking in my original post about the Federal government in particular; whether the situation is the same with various State and local governments would probably depend on the local laws.

Those interested in the concept of "sovereign immunity" might find this page interesting, although it has an obvious axe to grind, and deals particularly with bankruptcy law:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/usdc/bnkrptcy/briefs/b nk21.htm

What's the difference between this law and a law prohibiting possession of burglary tools? Here's a link to the Alaska statute. Its actually quite a similar law. The Biden amendment is closing a loophole which allows people to distribute tools to steal music, videos, or computer programs as long as they don't distribute the copyrighted material with it.

Please understand that I'm not defending the DMCA, however, all it is doing is defining what constitutes 'burgulary tools' with respect to software. This doesn't make it any more legal or fair or just, however, there is prescident for these kinds of definitions.

Many states have laws against posession of burgulary tools however, most states require that these tools are posesses with intent to commit a superceding crime (usually the top count of an engeightment). It is NOT illegal to sell or distribute burgulary tools.

This is the difference between all the burgulatry tools laws and the DMCA. The DMCA makes it illegal to distribute (software) burgulary tools. In my reading of the DMCA(pdf there is no requirement to prove intent, and distribution itself is the crime. The question then becomes, how is it that the DMCA has been violated if the software in question was never distributed inside the United states?

--CTH

--

I think that the general problem here is that there is a perception that you cannot own and use tools in a responsible manner. You cannot outlaw a screwdriver because someone in Timbuktu used one to commit murder, rape, or burglary, because screwdrivers have legitimate legal uses.

This is not true. There are some states (A laska and Arizona for example) which prohibit the posession of burglary tools.